M-day

But not as in the day of the week...as in change of location day!

That was yesterday.  I cooked supper in the new house last night, and we all woke up in the new house this morning.  Seems our friends are very excited.  Don't get me wrong, we're happy, we're thankful for all friends who had time on very short notice to lift and carry furniture, and for the friend who borrowed us some temporary countertop that he's not using just now.  Along with that, we feel a little relieved to be into the house in fall so we have time to do a few other very necessary things before winter. 

There are still lots of little evening projects and many of our conveniences have an inconvenient element today--and will continue to for a couple of weeks. We're going back hourly to the "old house" to collect more things that weren't in the first batch to migrate.  However, it's unanimous, we'd much rather be in the new house with some of our things than still in the old one with all our belongings. It's SO VERY good to have come to this stage in the journey.  Amazingly, the move was only 2 days off our ambitious, optomistic target date.  Lowering our standards of what consitutes "done" helped! :-)

Hope I can get some pics up soon for those who can't come to see it!

The pictures

Here's a quick look at the laminate,

ceramic tile,

and granite.

I'd like to say I finished tiling today, and I did reach a milestone.  I finished all the large tiles:  floors & bathroom wall.  In a week or more, I'll start agian with small tiles on the kitchen walls.  That has to wait until the cabinets and countertop are in.  Until then, there's grout to do, boxes to pack, tomatoes to can and more apples than I care to deal with (which really isn't that many...I'm just not feeling motivated, considering how much pie filling I still have from last year).
 
The cabinet installation seems to be coming along well.  Here's a couple pictures from the end of work today, a first peek at the kitchen.

The island install is done.  The rest of the cabinets are ready for all the pretty trims: light rails, crown mouldings, and toe kicks.  In the next few days we'll be shopping hard for the countertop, and scouting for just the right drawer pulls/ door handles.

We are having a lot of conversations about what needs to be done before we move.  Turns out the list of things that must happen after we move, but before freeze-up is the pushing factor now.  Dare I hope for moving within a week of the optomistic target date?!?

More progress

Again, it's 4 weeks since my last update, but there's lots of news.  Seems that a blog is a lot of work!  Either I have photos ready or I have text to share, but to get both ready...well, that has caused a lot of delays.  A week ago I started on the text for this post, and since this time yesterday I've tried 4 times to upload the photos that are finally ready to illustrate what I want to say.  No success with the upload.  Maybe I'll post pics without words another day.

We've had a successful shopping trips for doorknobs, heat vent covers, a small piece of linoleum, ceramic tile, a vanity, 4 more light fixtures and towel bars.

There's visible progress everywhere these days!  I'm getting nervous about how poorly I'm prepared to actually MOVE.

About a week ago we had our first look at the dining / living room areas without scaffold.  That experience added greatly to the feeling that it's a home. Also a week ago, we commemerated the first anniversary of Frame Raising.  The journey's felt long, but in some ways, it's only a year that we've been building on the house.

Except for the door & trim, the upstairs bathroom is finished!  Vanity, fixtures, towel bars, lights, and linoleum.

All the light fixtures are up.  The laminate flooring in the rest of the upstairs is finished.  The last of the masking tape is taken off walls & beams.  Granite tile is awaiting grout in the ensuite bath.  The 20 sq ft of ceramic tile is laid in the main entrance.  This evening Dennis reached the 2/3 point of the main floor laminate, which worked out exactly right.  The end of the hallway just past the kitchen was the 2/3 mark, and we got the phone call (also this evening) that the kitchen cabinets will be delivered tomorrow, at the short extreme of the estimated 4-5 weeks since they were ordered!  Amazing timing!

There is still 110 sq ft of ceramic tile to go, and all the grouting.  We continue to look for an antique cabinet to re-purpose as a vanity for the ensuite.  And the over-ambitious "countdown to moving" will switch to single digits tomorrow morning.

Last wall, last stair

Prior to starting our "Days Until Moving" countdown, we had made plans for some vacation time.  Obviously, ten days away from the project would set the odds further against us achieving the moving date goal.  We all really needed the break and had some dear people we were long past due to spend time with.  We went ahead with the planned road trip.  It was a very good break.  

Before I stop talking about vacation, here's a little something I picked up at our niece's beautiful scrapbooking & gift shop in Sylvan Lake, AB. It's wrought iron and measures about 30". How we squeezed it into our small car's trunk --along with all the luggage and two quilts my Auntie H had made for our girls-- is another story for another time. It is just right for the dining room, so it had to come home.

Now that we're home and back to work, we're making great progress again.  If I asked him, Dennis would report crafting the missing stringer and bottom tread for the living room side of the staircase, and building the pony wall that separates the basement stairs from the living room.  He has also made a lot of progress with finishing the electrical.  Wherever the paint is finished, there are lights, plug-ins, switches and cover plates.  The furnace and HRV have run for 10 and 20 minutes each to verify that they are wired up and working properly.

As a follow-up to my last post, here's another view of the stairs, this one before the pony wall went up.  For now, every tread is wrapped with corrugated cardboard to protect the varnish until we're done wearing work boots and tracking drywall dust around.

Shortly before we went away, we celebrated a milestone that will seem odd:  one functioning bathroom.   Complete with light, lightswitch and door, it's both conventient, and promise that we will actually live in this huge "arts & crafts" project one day.  Just a couple days ago I was marvelling at how every tiny bit of progress at this stage makes the structure feel more cozy, slowly tipping the balance from PROJECT to HOME.

Setting a target moving date has been helpful. We all find ourselves pushing a little harder, finding thing to do, or stopping our work an hour later.

 

Yesterday was a great day for the painting department.  The last peak of the south wall is done, the last of the walls are primed, we've (finally) settled on colors for the two upstairs bedrooms & bathroom and started painting them.  That leaves only the loft, one closet and two dormers in the vaulted ceiling areas untouched with color.

A slight tarnish in midst of all the good news & progress since we got home is the realization that our target occupancy date is likely to pass us by with no excitement. The kitchen cabinet order has had a few hiccoughs, the major ones being a bumpy staff change at the vendor during in the design process and us putting it on hold while we were on our vacation. Since getting home, we've finalized the design for the kitchen and decided on a few cabinets for the laundry. They are all ordered, but ETA is only 2-9 days before we had hoped to move. The vendor's preference is for contertops to be ordered after the cabinets are installed and can be physically measured for a proper fit on the first try. We'll trust their experienceAdding lead time for countertop could put us counting up "Days Late to Move".  Still, though, it's exciting to be saying "next we start flooring".

Stairs - a quick preview

So, this past weekend we assembled the stairs, hoisted them into place.  They are functional, but still need the lowest tread on the living room side of the T..  Railing will come after the paint is done. (I need the area open right now for easiest/safest ladder access.) 

We have a 2' section of railing that's already installed on the balcony edge;  just enough to know we made a good choice in materials.  We have every reason to hope that the "fresh" pine will age to color-match the pine that's been installed for a year.

Is this how warp speed feels??

So much is going on. For the last week, it feels like I get home from work, eat, sleep and paint. Fortunately, the average is still that I spend just a little more time sleeping than painting when I'm away from my 8-5 job. We were drawn to a Sico color called Whitish Clay, but it was too light until we doubled up on the tint. As we cover more walls with it, our affection for the resulting color grows. Last night we got a good start on the third gallon of it. We're also approaching the bottom of the first 5 gallon pail of primer. To have a feature wall or not is my current dilemma, and the array of available colors is making it hard for the girls to settle on what we'll be doing in their rooms. The taper is hoping to finish the upper level today, so that's buying all of us some deciding time. Again, I realize that we choose to treat the timbers like finished trim, and protecting them slows our pace at this task too.

Eight more light fixtures could go up during the lull between drywall boarding & taping.  My helper & I only got seven done, but the best part is that they are permanent!! We don't have to paint around them, so they can stay right where they are...for always! 

 

Dennis has been back in the barn workshop with his timberframing tools.  This week he's been working on building stairs from the main to upper level.  They are turning out with a very sturdy look.  Contrary to popular belief, we will NOT leave a ladder as the permanent route to the upper level.  It will be a strange change, but we'll adjust.  My bet is on the adjustment being quick!  More pictures will be coming once I'm done painting the walls near them, and they are installed.

We finally have quotes and drawings for 2 different kitchen layouts.  One is very open and reveals a lot of timber, but is weak on upper storage space.  The other errs in the opposite direction on both points.  We need to decide this week so the other minor changes can be made and place our order.  Cabinets are 4-6 weeks away.

One fun thing we've done is start a countdown. We know it's much more ambitious than realistic, but it's been one more thing helping us stay focused on what's sometimes felt like "The Never-Ending Road".

and almost another 4 months!

I had intended for blog updates to be more regular than this when I set out to chronicle the highlights.  Since the last word here, life's been full of ups and downs, trips to work, school, church and home.  Somewhere in there the house is still managing to make progress. 

After months of feeling like we're only gaining baby steps at our project, there's been a sudden and exciting shift.  Things are happening fast!  Yesterday was another great day...aw shoot, it's been a great week.  I can't bear tell it all in order, so I'm gonna skip straight to today's highlight and then fill you in on the journey.

Just starting the drywall last Saturday was wonderful.  Then came Wednesday and our appointment to bring measurements, sketches and ideas to get our cabinet order started.  Thursday we picked up the supplies for the taper and took advantage of great sale pricing on interior doors. 

Friday the taper and boarders were all here.  Today we got within about 2 hours of finishing all the drywall boarding.  After all the months of Dennis working mostly solo, having this much help--family members who are pros at this stuff--has made things seem to go fast.  I think drywall must always be a memorable step because it changes the skeleton of studding to actual closed in rooms.

Before long we'll be painting!!  I'll be making final decisions on paint colors in the next week.  We're getting a first-class job of the drywall & taping thanks to brothers of Dennis' but we have to be we willing to work around their schedules, meaning that we won't be starting paint for another 10 days at best.

Now, about all the necessary things that have brought us to this point.

It’s been a very wet spring. For the last month there’s absolutely NO way we could get the necessary trucks near enough to the house to cement it now. We’ve been very thankful that the basement was cemented in the winter! 

Getting the cement done cleared the way for heating and plumbing. We’ve heard of contractors saying that this mechanical stage is twice as much work when there’s a timberframe to work around. It’s certainly been tedious, but it had to be done.  We're thrilled at how invisible most of it is.  The only real concession we had to make at this phase is that we have an 8" heat duct running floor to ceiling in the master bedroom's walk-in closet.  In all, we console ourselves "that's a small price to pay to be able to heat upstairs bedrooms."  Until we finish the basement, most of the heating & plumbing can be viewed there, if that sort of thing interests you.

Next Dennis got the permit, did some more reading and wired up the house. His handiwork passed inspection first try with flying colors. Which isn't to say that it was quick or easy. There are over 100 boxes and 2500 ft of wire, much of it run through blind chases inside the styrofoam insulation of the exterior walls.

Another issue we console ourselves about is the front lawn. It`s a mess!  There were already shallow ruts in the fall.  Although none of our property has been damaged or threatened by floodwaters, the abundance of moisture this spring has made it challenging to schedule delivery of heavy material like drywall.  We've had wild ducks swimming on the yard, pumped water off the yard several times, and once when it was starting to dry, tried the old farming technique of tilling to speed drying.  Neither were successful, but we did get a break of almost 4 days without rain.  The local lumberyard was able to deliver our drywall hours before another good watering added to the puddles.

Summer 2012 will be for landscaping.

Two months gone!

Well, here we are:  2011 is already flying by like it's eager to be as gone as 2010.  Work, home, teens with activities, more work, and squeeze in some house building.  It's time for a progress report.  When I start choosing pictures, I realize a lot has gotten done since I last updated you.

The loft floor needed to be strapped in 2x2's to make a void to run electrical for the main & upper levels in places where the traditional solution would be between floor joists.  Once the wiring has passed inspection, we'll sheet with plywood & install the laminate.

Then it was studding walls upstairs:  a bunch of 2x4's, nails and a whole lot of head scratching.  The sloped ceiling and working around the rafters made it a little more challenging.  At every step we were re-thinking the walls a few inches one direction or another to keep the timbers visible in as many rooms as possible.  In one place that meant trimming back some of the floor/ceiling boards to uncover a section of rough-cut timber, then sanding & varnishing that 8"x16' piece. That was nearly a full day of work for one person, but it's well worth it!

The biggest challenge of framing upstairs?   I'd say the day Dennis single-handedly moved a bathtub up 10' from the living room to the bathroom so he could frame the last wall.

1. Rig up the hoist

2. Tie on the tub.

3. Swing tub to right of stairpost and into bathroom at the far right.

Sounds easy to me, but a simple explaination does not equal an easy task.







With the loft all framed up, and a couple of warm days in the forecast, we made plans to pour the basement floor Feb 4. It was great to have the help of a friend who's got a lot of experience with concrete.


Pre-cement

All done!!

About here there was a pause for information gathering and getting ready for the next phase.  We ordered the heating & ventilation package, and got the permit for wiring.  While all that was in the works, Dennis gathered his self-discipline and finished the gables.  The plans weren't clear about where the gable would meet the roofline, so we had decided to wait until we weren't guessing anymore.  Still, that meant the 2x6 ceiling boards now had to be cut away at the proper angles, boards had to be cut and installed on the ceiling of the gables.  Then the gable walls had to be sheeted to make a surface to drywall later.  All four gables had to be done off a ladder. For two of them, the ladder didn't even need to be on top of a scaffold.  Tedious, but it's really improved the look of things!  Here's a gable before & after: 

We're also anticipating having more living space and have started collecting pieces of furniture we'll be needing. 

One daughter loved the dresser, has claimed it as her own and is eagerly working on fixing one area where the varnish had some damage. 

The re-thinking wall placements I referred to earlier left us with very few choices for layout in the upstairs bathroom.  In choosing to have a mirror, we had to pare down the vanity to less than 1/4 of the size I'd planned.  The chest of drawers will need a little TLC, but we're looking forward to it being the solution to storage in the upstairs bathroom. 

With the basement finished and a small 220V construction heater keeping the house comfortable, we finally have a place to store such treasures!

And this little piece (30x18x18") with it's real leather handles just tickled my fancy at the antique shop where we found it.  (Note to shopping friends:  Here's a valuable lesson... ALWAYS wonder aloud "but what would I do with it?" when you stumble into something you really like but can't quite make practical enough to buy.  A sales clerk just might overhear and give you several wonderful reasons to own it... blanket box, toy box, coffee table, and I've forgotten the other 3.)  You'll have to come down to see where it ends up.  I've got a couple of  ideas, but I'm not telling!

This post has taken so long to assemble, it's almost all old news.  Hopefully by the end of the week we'll have more to tell, and by the end of the month I'll find time to tell it!

Not my house

We have a neighbor who is also building a timberframe home.  One morning, about a month ago he phoned:  "Today's the day!  Come on over."  Dennis had to see this! 

He has shortened his project several months by hiring Cornerstone Timberframes to build and raise the frame.  The frame has some similarity to ours, but there are also a lot of design differences.  They are making good progress getting it closed in.  It's looking good.  Congrats N&S!!  Enjoy the journey.

So, to summarize, this is not my house.  This is not my yard.  This is not even my dog!

Happy New Year...a week of firsts!

In the last week we've chalked up a nice list of "firsts"

• First meal in the new house...a picnic lunch of sandwiches & hot chocolate on Dec 27.
• First box of Kleenex opened in the new house (I agree, a strange milestone!)
• First nap taken in the new house.

And the really BIG one:

• First floor walls all studded up yesterday.  I'm actually surprised at how small many of the rooms look with walls.  Maybe that's because I've seem the main floor as one open area for so long.  It is getting easier to imagine kitchen cabinets and paint colors.